COURSE of the MONTH

I have been tasked with finding out how many amps all of our server room equipment pulls. How to tackle this?

I'm not an electrician, not even close, and I'm unsure of the fastest and most efficient way to accomplish, but unfortunately I need to have answers by today. We have about 30 pieces of equipment between routers, servers, and switches in our data room. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

Manufacturer's stated maximum current is exactly that: a maximum for a fully configured system with every conceivable option loaded in at the highest load. if you calculate the current consumption based on that, you'll be out by at least 50% and probably significantly more. A much more accurate method is to use an ammeter to measure the actual consumption. You should measure the power consumed by all racks and air conditioning as well

A clamp meter only works if you can separate the active and neutral conductors which you can do at the switch board - but for heaven's sake, call a licensed electrician to do this for you. Don't access the wiring behind the covers on the switchboard unless you know **exactly** what you're doing. If you get it wrong at best you'll cause a massive outage. At worst, you'll be pushing up daisies.

If your servers have something like DELL Openmanage or HP ILO, that system will give you current, if not historical as well, power data. As for other pieces of equipment, like switches and routers, they won't. If you need numbers, you won't really be able to get them today. You would need an electrician to come out with a meter and he would have to tap into your breakers that run your server room. If this is something you'll continue to need, you'll need to buy smart PDU's and get them wired onto all of the equipment, and into your network. You can buy per outlet models, that give power draw by outlet: https://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=478 Or you can get much cheaper and buy a unit that just tells you power draw for the entire PDU: https://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=136